Laughing all the way to the (food) bank

With the Conservatives successfully achieving something of an electoral coup by way of an unexpected majority and with austerity therefore upheld, the growing disparity between rich and poor is set to become a key talking point. But despite revelations of the Trussell Trust report documenting a 19% annual increase in food-bank dependency, the calls of a cross-party MP committee for the government to investigate food insecurity has failed.

Whilst the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) has made it clear that disparity between the rich and poor in the UK has seen a significant increase over the past 5 years and as reliance on food banks grow unchecked, major parties have refused to collect any robust statistical data of their own, much less make it any sort of government priority.

Figures and their relevance have been heatedly contested across the political spectrum but without objective research from above it is left to the food-banks to provide the sums themselves, and whichever way you cut it and whoever you blame, 1.1 million people requiring charitable emergency food in the sixth largest economy in the world should be abominable.